1. Home
    2. ›
  2. What is White Bread?
    3. ›
  3. Basic White Bread Recipe

Basic White Bread Recipe

The basic white bread recipe is the typical start of anyone's breadmaking journey.

It's easy to master, doesn't take forever to make and tastes great.

Let's take a look at the ingredients for a basic white loaf. This loaf should fit a 1lb loaf tin, the dimensions for that tin should be something in the range of  24cm x 10cm x 5cm.

Prep Time
4h 30m
Cook Time
0h 30m
Total Time
5h 0m

Ingredients

For 1 small loaf

  • 250g strong white bread flour
  • 150ml warm water
  • 3.5g yeast
  • 0.5 tsp salt
  • 1.5 tsp sugar
  • 2 tsp olive oil

Method

Step 1

To start, sieve your flour into a large mixing bowl and add in the yeast, sugar and salt.  Give this a bit of a mix and combine everything together

Basic white bread ingredients

Step 2

Next we want to add in our wet ingredients, add the oil and then the water to this. You can either use a dough hook or get messy with your hands and really mix this together.

Basic white bread mixture

Step 3

Once we have this all mixed add some oil to a work surface and pour the mix onto the surface.

We now need to knead this dough for around 10 mins, if the dough appeared to be a bit too wet you can add small amounts of flour to help.

Once this feels nice and smooth, transfer this to a bowl that has been lightly oiled and cover it with some cling film or saran wrap.


Basic white bread ready for proving

Step 4

Its now time for the first rise, leave this in a warm place for 1 hour or until it has doubled in size.

Basic white bread after proving

Step 5

We then need to knock the dough back with around 5 more minutes of kneading. This dough can now be shaped into something that is about the same size as your loaf tin.

You can now put the dough in the tin and leave this for another short rise of about 30 mins


White bread mixture after second prove

Step 6

Preheat your oven to 200F / 180 Fan / Gas Mark 6

Step 7

When the oven is pre-heated, you can score the top of the loaf. This will help the bread to expand. It also makes your bread look pretty good!

Cook in the middle of your oven for around  30 - 35 mins


Step 8

When it is done take the bread out of the tin and tap the bottom. It should sound hollow inside. This is the sign of a cooked loaf.

You then need to allow this to cool on wire rack for 15 mins before slicing into it.


Basic white bread after cooking
Basic White Bread

Discover More Bread Types

Shane Jones

About Me

Hi, I'm Shane the person behind bakesomebread.com

I've been baking bread for about 10 years now and ever since mastering sourdough bread in 2020 I've decided to branch out into discovering every type of bread imaginable.

This website will document all of those bread types along with recipes as and when I've made them.

If you're a pizza fan check out my other site Make Some Pizza​